Voluntary assisted dying legal in NSW from today

Voluntary assisted dying is legal in New South Wales from today.

Transcript

00:00 Eligible patients must have an illness where death is expected within 6 months or 12 months

00:08 if it's a neurodegenerative disease.

00:10 And patients must also have decision-making capacity and make this request for life-ending

00:15 medication to two different doctors.

00:18 And New South Wales becomes the final state in Australia to introduce voluntary assisted

00:23 dying and a key difference here is that patients will have the ability to choose whether they

00:29 take the medication themselves or with the help of a doctor.

00:33 And in New South Wales doctors can conscientiously object to the practice but they can't block

00:38 a patient from accessing information about it.

00:41 And the state's Chief Health Officer Dr. Kerry Chadd says that there is expected to be strong

00:46 demand from patients at least in the first few weeks and she also says that hundreds

00:51 of doctors are either undergoing the training process or are already fully accredited.

00:57 Take a listen.

00:58 We're currently very pleased with the number of practitioners that have put up their hand

01:02 for the training and that are going through the process so we're very optimistic that

01:06 on the 28th of November when voluntary assisted dying commences we will have adequate numbers

01:12 of practitioners to cater for the demand.

01:14 We are expecting that the demand will be actually quite strong particularly in those first few

01:22 weeks.

01:23 These laws were passed 18 months ago and advocacy group Dying With Dignity says that it has

01:28 been a long 50 year campaign and this group says that today is a huge and overwhelming

01:34 relief for patients who are facing incredible suffering and for their families as well and

01:40 they say that there are strict safeguards built into this legislation to make sure that

01:45 it can't be abused.

01:47 Advocates now say the focus should turn to more health care resources in rural and regional

01:52 New South Wales to ensure that there is equal access across the state to these new measures.

01:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]